In the 40 years since John Mellencamp wrote “Rain on The Scarecrow”,  his hard-rocking anthem chronicling hard times for American family farmers; their fate has become even more precarious. 

Now, besides ongoing threats like the high cost of fuel, difficulty getting equipment repaired at a reasonable cost, crop-eating pests, and the weather; farmers are also facing a tremendous drop in sales because of uncertainty about tariffs, and foreign competition.

Our morning show host, Ray Horner, had a conversation this week with Ty Higgins, Ohio Farm Bureau Senior Director of Communications and Media Relations, about how the threat of tariffs and increased foreign competition is affecting farmers right now, and how this year’s unusually heavy rains at the start of the growing season has literally washed out a big percentage of what they had hoped to harvest.

Listen now:

Ty Higgins, Ohio Farm Bureau